Resurrection: The Fulfillment of Promise (Acts 13:30-38) | Worship Service | Resurrection Sunday Mor

Into your kingdom Christ will come again. There's nothing to fear And everything to gain. And so we gather here. People join the feet The other we proclaim His death until he comes. Oh, he's coming back.

He's coming back again. And every time In my heart, in my head Lung so long to that city Feels so far away Where the dawn will drive away our tears. Prophet spoke from the sacred page to you And he killed the ram instead.

This is the place where Jesus said You could tear down the temple And he'd raise it from the dead. I'll meet you here next year. Feels so far away Where the dawn will drive away our tears.

Every stone that makes you stumble And cuts you when you fall Every serpent here that strikes your heel To curse you when you crawl. The king of love one day will crush them all. And every sad seduction And every clever lie Every word that woos and wounds The pilgrim children of the sky The king of love will break them by And you will rise up in the sky.

It's giving up the ghost again. Another sheet of snow melts away to golden green. Look at Peter go, he's racing to the tomb to see. Where has my Jesus. Countless we have killed Our priests, our cheats, our prophets, our liars.

We know what the law requires But we pile our sins up higher and higher. Who can ascend that hill. And I am a sheep who's gone astray. I have turned aside in my own way. Have mercy on me, son of David.

Loud in this monitor.

I'm really loud in this monitor, okay?

The female vocals, are you singing?

I might sing here and there a little bit.

Can you sing on this one so I can get your mic dialed? I couldn't hear you either.

Are we supposed to test? Testing one, two. Testing one, two, three. Testing one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Christ the Lord is risen today Our sons of Bethel. I think we're almost there.

Can you turn the piano monitor for her up just a little bit? Just the piano itself. Okay, thank you, Nate.

What songs do I know?

All of a sudden I forget every song I've ever learned. I can play the Narnia song.

Resurrection Hope in the Opening Songs

Christ will come again There's nothing to fear And everything to gain. And so we gather here Songs I've sung so long Full of flesh and bone To that city that we long for Though we feel so far away Where the dawn will drive away our tears.

Next year Prophets spoke from another age And the song rose up from the sacred page to you. Resurrection came to town. To that city that we long for Though we feel so far away Where the dawn will drive away our tears.

The place where Abraham cut loose the boy And he killed the ram instead. And this is the place where Jesus said You could tear down the temple And he'd raise it from the dead. I'll meet you here next year That we long for Though we feel so far away Where the dawn will drive away our tears.

And we'll meet someday Next year in the new Jerusalem. Every stone that makes you stumble And cuts you when you fall. Every serpent here that strikes your heel To curse you when you crawl.

The king of love one day will crush them all Every sad seduction And every clever lie Every word that will The pilgrim children of the sky The king of love will break them And you will rise up in the air.

Hang up the ghost again Another sheet of snow. Try something new, they said.

He's gone for two weeks, and he wants something new today. I don't know. All right, welcome to church this morning. Would you guys stand, please, as we sing Oh, What a Day. Stay standing, and we're going to sing Christ the Lord is Risen Today.

Christ the Lord today I want to thank everybody for their help this morning with the breakfast.

It was a fantastic breakfast for those who donated and helped cook and clean and set up. That was much appreciated. And I just want to briefly announce that we have a new round of fellowship dinners starting up for the summer.

So if you want to be involved with that, the fellowship dinners, which is where you get together with some other families and you rotate homes and enjoy meals together, get to know each other, you can sign up for that out on the welcome table, I think, and then we'll send out an email later this week that will let everybody know how you can do that online.

And then on the back counter here by the kitchen, there is some leftover food from this morning's breakfast. So if you feel so inclined and you want to grab some of those supplies on your way out, they're there for the taking.

Take whatever it is that you would like. Turn now, if you will, please, to Acts chapter 13 for our Scripture reading. This is not the sermon part of the service. We're going to read Scripture together and then I'll ask you to stand and we will pray together.

Acts 13, and this is the passage that we're going to be looking at for the message today. The book of Acts chapter 13, and we're going to begin reading at verse 13. The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt.

And with an uplifted arm, He led them out from it. For a period of about 40 years, He put up with them in the wilderness. When He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He distributed their land as an inheritance, all of which took about 450 years.

After these things, He gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years. After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will.

From the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus. After John had proclaimed before His coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And while John was completing his course, he kept saying, What do you suppose that I am?

I am not He, but behold, one is coming after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. Brethren, sons of Abraham's family and those among you who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent.

For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed.

When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead, and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people.

And we preach to you the good news of the promises made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children, and that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second psalm, You are my son, today I have begotten you.

As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. Therefore, He also says in another psalm, you will not allow your holy one to undergo decay.

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay, but he whom God raised did not undergo decay. Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses.

Therefore, take heed, so that the things spoken of in the prophets may not come upon you. Behold, you scoffers, and marvel and perish, for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.

Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads. Our Father, we are grateful to be able to be here together and to worship You today. We thank You for calling us out of darkness and into light and giving us the hope of eternal life found in Jesus Christ and Him alone.

We thank You for the sure blessings of David, that which You promised that You have fulfilled in raising Jesus Christ from the dead. We thank You that in His resurrection we are able to stand and have forgiveness that we are justified through that.

We thank You for the salvation that has been accomplished in that once and for all sacrifice and in the resurrection that followed on the third day. Because of that, we have hope eternal. We have hope of eternal life.

We have the promise of bodily resurrection, the new heavens and the new earth. We know that all of the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. Because You have promised, You will fulfill every last detail of our salvation.

We know that, we believe that, and we are certain of it. Because Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, and in Him we have hope for eternal life and hope for salvation. And we praise You and bless You for the forgiveness of sins that that entails, and that we can stand before You righteous and praise You, our great God and our King.

We thank You for these things in the name of Christ our Lord.

Amen.

1 Corinthians 15, verse 53 it says, For this corruptible must put on the incorruptible, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible puts on the incorruptible, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the word that is written.

Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

With your Bibles open to Acts chapter 13, let's bow our heads before we begin. Our gracious God, we thank You for Your Word, for the testimony of eyewitnesses who have borne that testimony of a risen Christ, and they have written down the revelation concerning You and Your redemptive plan, and what has been accomplished in the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Your Word is clear, it is perfect, it is true, and we pray today as we spend this time meditating upon it and studying it, reading it, and looking at it together, that You would be honored and that Christ may be exalted here in our midst.

May Your Spirit be our guide to this end, and Your Word the center of our focus. Teach us, we pray, through Your Spirit, and that You would be glorified here through this time. That is what we ask in Christ's name.

Amen.

The Resurrection as the Center of Christian Doctrine

Well, if Christ is not risen, then your faith is useless. The Apostle Paul could not have said that any more straightforward or clear than he does in 1 Corinthians 15. And so today as Christians we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection is not just one aspect or one element of the Christian faith.

It's not just one belief that we have that sort of contributes to making Christianity what it is. Rather, the resurrection is the central doctrine of the Christian faith. It is the doctrine upon which all of the other doctrines rest.

Whether you're talking about the inspiration of Scripture, I mean obviously the inspiration of Scripture is not true if the resurrection did not happen, because Scripture testifies that Christ has been raised from the dead.

The doctrine of the Trinity is not a true doctrine if the resurrection did not happen, because Christ claimed to be one with the Father, and yet not be the Father, and yet be the Son of the Eternal God.

And so if He did not rise from the dead, then the doctrine of the Trinity is not true. The doctrine of the second coming of Christ is not true if He has not risen, because if He didn't rise again after His death on the cross, if He didn't rise three days later, then He's not coming again.

The doctrine of eternal judgment, the doctrine of eternal life, the doctrine of heaven, none of those doctrines are true if Christ is not risen. So the resurrection of Christ is not just ancillary to the Christian faith.

It's not something that we tack on to Christianity to make us feel good. The resurrection is the heart and soul of the Christian faith. It is the heart and soul of Christian doctrine. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, 17, if Christ is not risen, your faith is worthless and you are still in your sins.

In fact, Paul argues that if Christ is not risen from the dead, then you actually have no valid object of faith. If Christ is not risen, it doesn't matter how strong your faith is. It doesn't matter how sincere your faith is.

It doesn't matter how fervent you are in placing your faith in Christ. If He is not risen, He is not a valid object of faith. You are a fool if He is not risen from the dead. Faith or belief that is connected to the literal, historical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is the heart and center of Christianity.

And without that, you and I have nothing. Without the resurrection of Christ, what have you placed your faith in? A mere man who claimed to be God. He claimed to be the life. He claimed to be one with the Father.

He claimed to be the Divine Son. He made all kinds of outlandish claims, like the fact that the destiny of all men who have ever lived would hinge upon Him, that He would be the judge of all men, or the Savior of those who repent and believe upon Him for salvation.

That is an outlandish claim if He is not risen from the dead. If Christ is not risen, then you and I have no valid object of faith. If He is not risen, then there is no forgiveness of sins. There is no forgiveness of sins.

Paul says, you're still in your sins if Christ is not risen. But in Romans 4, verse 25, it says He was raised for our justification. You see, the resurrection of Christ is the proof. It is the proof. The historical, observable, verifiable, and falsifiable proof that our sins have been forgiven.

Because that was the Father's demonstration that the sacrifice of the Son was sufficient to atone for the sins of any and all who would believe upon Him. And if He is not risen, then there is no forgiveness of sins.

That means no sufficient payment for sins has ever been made if He is not risen. If He is not risen, then you are pitiful or pathetic, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. We are of all men most to be pitied.

If Christ is not risen, then why do you waste your time in prayer? Praying to a God who has no reason to hear your prayer, no reason to give any ear to you whatsoever. Because if He is not risen, then that means that His sacrifice did not bring you into the presence of God.

It did not bring you near to Him. And if He is not risen, then He is certainly not interceding for you at the Father's right hand, giving you a hearing in His presence. So there's no purpose to prayer.

And if He is not risen, then you waste your time and your energy reading the Bible. Because it's just a collection of verses and books written by obviously delusional men who thought they saw a risen Christ three days after He was crucified.

So if He is not risen, then do us all a favor after the service today, go home and burn your Bibles. Because they're not worth the pages that they're printed on. If He is not risen. And if He is not risen, then you are wasting your time in holy and obedient living.

By saying no to yourself and denying yourself and mortifying sin and resisting temptation and seeking to pursue holiness, which Scripture says without which no one will see the Lord. All of your efforts at obedience and holiness and righteousness in this life, all of your efforts to serve one another, to love one another, they are all useless if He is not risen.

If He is not risen, then there is no hope for anything beyond this life. You have no hope for eternal life. You have no hope for the forgiveness of sins. There is nothing yet to come. You are going to live this life and in the words of Solomon, you're going to get to the end of it and realize that it was all vanity and you're going to go into the grave and you are going to become worm food.

And there is no future for you. There is no judgment to come. There is no eternal justice. There is no life beyond the grave. There is no hope for a new heavens and a new earth. This world is the very best that you have to experience.

This world is the very best that you will ever experience. So eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die, if there is no resurrection. There's a lot that hinges on the resurrection, right? I mean, truly, if Christ is not risen, then Macbeth was right.

Life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. And yet, in pulpits all across this land, well, maybe not now because these kinds of churches are shut down, but in pulpits all across this land, unbelieving and unsaved pastors will stand behind their pulpits and they will say to their people that you don't need to believe in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ to be a good Christian.

In fact, they will say that the resurrection of Christ really is not the heart and soul of the Christian faith. What is really important is that he lives within our hearts. He lives within us. That's really, it's more a metaphor for how good we can be and what God can do inside of us.

Now that is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. The resurrection is not just all we have, it is everything we have, and it is everything. When the apostles preached Christ, they preached Christ crucified, buried, and risen again.

That was the heart and soul of the apostolic message. In fact, if you look through the book of Acts, you will see that the apostles did not sermonize about the love of God. They didn't sermonize about social justice.

They didn't sermonize about making us all one or the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God and the neighborhood of Kootenai. They didn't sermonize about any of those things at all. What they did preach was Christ crucified, buried, and risen again.

It wasn't just part of the apostolic message. It was the apostolic message. In every synagogue, in every city, before every group of people, on Mars Hill, the apostles could hardly open their mouths without declaring the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And we have an example of one such sermon in Acts chapter 13, and that is our text for this morning. So if you have not turned there yet, I would encourage you to do so. Acts chapter 13. We're going to look at one of the apostle Paul's sermons.

In fact, it is his first recorded sermon on his first missionary journey. And Dr. Luke, in recording this sermon, gives us quite...this is the longest, I think, of Paul's recorded sermons in the book of Acts.

And it is the first one that we have from the lips of the apostle Paul. So first, a little bit of context with Acts 13. The apostle Paul first comes on the scene back in Acts chapter 9. Sorry, back in Acts chapter 7 after Stephen was stoned, but then he is converted in Acts chapter 9.

And after a few years of being by himself and eventually ministering in the town of Antioch, the apostle Paul was called, along with Barnabas and John Mark, to a missionary journey. So that is Acts chapter 13, verse 1.

That first missionary journey they set out from Pisidian Antioch, and they headed due northwest across the Mediterranean Sea to an island of Cyprus. They crossed that island from one end to another, preaching Christ.

They left on the northern end of the Isle of Cyprus and traveled up to Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey, and then sort of taking a north and eastern circular route back around to the city of Antioch, where they had started, they came through a number of churches, sorry, a number of cities, Lystra and Derbe and Iconium, and eventually on to a town called Pisidian Antioch.

And in that city of Pisidian Antioch, that is where Luke records this sermon that Paul gave. I read it at the beginning of the sermon, or the beginning of the service today. You saw that after that travel plan when they stopped in the city of Pisidian Antioch, they went into the synagogue, as was their custom, and the leaders of the synagogue said, brethren, men, brethren, if you have something to say, stand up and say it.

It was a custom of that day that a traveling rabbi would have an opportunity to address the rest of the synagogue there, so the Apostle Paul, being a student of Scripture, stood up and he began to preach there in that synagogue.

And the Apostle Paul does something very interesting. He doesn't begin with the resurrection, he doesn't begin with sinfulness, he doesn't begin with any of those things. He actually begins with a survey of Israel's history.

He goes back to Abraham and into the Exodus, and God called them out of Exodus and brought them into the wilderness and gave them a time of judges, and then they asked for a king, and they got Saul, and Saul was not a bad king, so they raised up David, a man after whom God said, David pursues my heart, and to David, God gave certain promises.

And now he has fulfilled some of those promises, and the point of the Apostle Paul in giving all of that survey of the history of Israel was to demonstrate that what he is about to declare to them concerning Jesus Christ is not something that just comes out of the blue.

This is the fulfillment of everything God had promised to the nation of Israel. There was a long, redemptive history that God had been working out and unfolding over the ages, all of which they were aware of and they knew.

So then he places the coming of Christ, the death of Christ, and the resurrection of Christ in the context of that redemptive work of God. It is all centered around the nation of Israel, and the promises that God gave to the nation of Israel.

So we have in Acts chapter 13, if you just look at the context, he begins that history in verse 16, the God of this people Israel chose our the God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt.

And then he traces it all the way down through the end of verse 22 where he talks about David being one who would pursue after God's heart and do all of his will from the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus.

So he is endeavoring to show in verses 23 through 25 that the coming of Christ, the arrival of the Messiah was the fulfillment of the promise that God made to David. God had promised something to David.

You will have a descendant, and that descendant will sit upon your throne and establish your kingdom and rule over it in righteousness, and he will rule the nations forever. It will be an everlasting kingdom, and to that kingdom there will be no end.

That was what God promised David. So in accordance with the keeping of that promise, God has sent this Savior, Jesus. Then in verse 26, he talks about those, how about Christ being crucified also a fulfillment of promise.

Brethren, sons of Abraham's family and those among you who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. Those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers recognizing neither him nor the utterance of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these condemning him.

They fulfilled the prophetic word, the promises of God by condemning Christ, even the crucifixion of Christ. His condemnation and his execution was a fulfillment of divine promise. Verse 28, and though they found no ground for putting him to death, they asked Pilate that he be executed.

And when they had carried out all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. All of this was the fulfillment of promise. So the coming of Christ was a fulfillment of God's redemptive promises to the nation of Israel.

The execution of Christ was a fulfillment of God's promises to the nation of Israel, his redemptive promises. And now in verses 30 to 37, and this is the bulk of the message. This is the heart of Paul's message.

He's been building up to this, all the way from the very beginning he's been building up to this point. From verse 30 to 37, the apostle is endeavoring to show that the resurrection of Christ was also a fulfillment of God's redemptive promises to the nation of Israel.

So beginning in verse 7, sorry, beginning in verse 30, we're going to notice three key points about the resurrection. First, that the resurrection was witnessed by people in verses 30 to 31, it was the heart of apostolic preaching in verse 32, and that it was the fulfillment of God's promises in verses 33 and 37.

First, it was witnessed by the people, look at verse 30, but God raised him from the dead. This is in the context of verse 29 and 28. They found no guilt for him, but they put him to death. They asked Pilate that he be executed.

Verse 29, when they had carried out all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb, but God raised him from the dead. I almost get the sense that the apostle Paul couldn't wait to get to that point.

I mean, he had to start way back with Abraham and Egypt and coming out of Egypt and the land of Canaan and that promise and God gave them the land and then the judges and then the kings and then David and the promises to David.

He's been building up to this. This is the crescendo. He gets to the death and the execution of this one and any Jew there who was unfamiliar with the story, which would have likely been all of them, any Jew there would have been wondering, now how does this story end?

God gave all of these promises to the nation. He fulfilled the land and he brought us into the land and then he promised to David a descendant and then the descendant shows up and they execute him, they kill him.

Is that how this story ends? You get the sense the apostle Paul couldn't wait to say verse 30, but God raised him from the dead. This is really the key to the whole thing. God raised him from the dead and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem.

This resurrection was witnessed by the people and the bulk of the apostle's time here is spent on the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the centrality of it. Now that declaration in verse 30, God raised him from the dead, that is a verifiable and a falsifiable statement.

In other words, it can be easily falsified. Now when I say to you that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the heart and soul of Christianity and without that we have nothing else, that means that if it could be proven that Jesus Christ did not raise from the dead there is no what?

There's no Christianity. That means we have nothing else. If the body was eaten by worms, if the body decayed, if the body did not come out of the tomb, if it could have been shown that there was a dead body in that tomb on the third day and not a risen Christ, if it could be proved that all of those resurrection appearances were nothing more than hallucinations or fabrications or if it could be proven that the disciples stole the body or that the Roman soldiers stole the body, if it could somehow be proved that Christ is not risen then all of Christianity crumbles to the ground.

It is a falsifiable claim that God has raised him from the dead. That is either true or it is false. And if it is false, so is your faith. If it is true, then everything in Scripture is true. God raised him from the dead and he appeared to, verse 31, those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now his witnesses to the people.

Now the first witnesses to the resurrection were not the men who are mentioned here. Paul doesn't say he appeared first to them. He just says he appeared to them. He appeared to them and to many others who came with him from Galilee to Jerusalem.

That's the disciples. These are the twelve men who followed Jesus, minus Judas of course. So we would say the eleven. He followed and he appeared to the eleven. And Paul also himself was a witness to the resurrection of Christ.

So your faith and my faith and the testimony of Scripture, this rests upon solid and reliable eyewitness testimony. There were eyewitnesses who saw the risen Christ three days after he died. And they saw not only a risen Christ, but many of these same eyewitnesses were eyewitnesses of everything that had preceded that.

Think of all of the other things of that Passion Week to which there were countless thousands of eyewitnesses. And all of this would have been public knowledge to anybody in and around Jerusalem. That he was charged falsely before Pontius Pilate and he stood trial before Pontius Pilate.

That would have been a public trial. The other trials that he had, that Jesus faced that night before he was crucified, some of those would have been public trials, some of them would have been private trials.

There were five different trials that he endured over the course of that night, appearing before Pontius once and before Caiaphas at least twice. And those would have been witnessed by people hostile to Christ as well as friends of Christ.

And then his crucifixion was public. He was hung on a cross outside of the city of Jerusalem, outside the city gate in public view of all of the pilgrims who had come to the city of Jerusalem for Passover and as they walked by that main road into the city of Jerusalem they would have walked by the two thieves and Jesus Christ in the center of them being crucified.

All of his abuse and all of his mistreatment was before the eyes of hostile enemies as well as before the eyes of his friends and sympathizers. And it would have been public view in front of all of those people his crucifixion.

And then after he was crucified, he was publicly pierced with a spear and he was publicly certified as dead by the Roman soldiers and the centurions who then turned the body over to Joseph of Arimathea and Joseph of Arimathea was not the only one who handled the body and prepared it for burial.

So we are talking about dozens and hundreds of people who were very close to the events of the crucifixion and thousands of them who would have walked by and were witnesses to the crucifixion. Everything that had happened to our Lord on Good Friday and all of that week prior, everything of it had been done before the eyes of men, before witnesses.

So all of the.

Claims of the Gospels regarding what Christ has done and who he is and what he claimed and what he did and his crucifixion, all of them are verifiable or falsifiable statements. All of those events taking place in public view and his resurrection is no less certifiable and verifiable.

Because after he was raised from the dead, then he appeared to Mary and then he appeared to Peter and then he appeared to John and then he appeared to the 11 and then he appeared to, I'm sorry, the 11 minus Thomas and then later, a week later, to all of the 11 who were there and at one point, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he appeared to over 500 witnesses at one time.

500 of them. Over the next 40 days he appeared in various locations to various groups of people at various times of the day. So much so that Luke says in Acts chapter 1 that he presented himself alive after his sufferings with many convincing proofs.

He presented himself alive with many convincing proofs over the course of those 40 days. So that all that he said and all that he did and the testimony concerning him, it was all verifiable and certifiable and of course all of it then is falsifiable.

As well.

And the apostolic testimony, the apostles were not the only ones to see him alive. In fact, if you were to take all 500 of those witnesses who saw him on that one occasion and give each of them 5 minutes to testify and to testify as to what they had seen with their own eyes, eyewitnesses, that would be over 50 hours of eyewitness testimony.

That would be the most lopsided trial in all of human history. 50 hours of eyewitnesses who said, yes, we saw him dead and we saw him alive. Some of them said, yes, we saw him dead and we saw him alive and we touched him and we spoke with him and we ate with him and he taught us and we were with him for 40 days.

Your faith rests on the reliable testimony of eyewitnesses recorded for us in scripture. So it was seen by people.

Second, it is.

The heart of gospel preaching. Look at verse 32 and we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers. This is the central aspect of what Paul did. This is central to everything he did.

We have come here to preach the good news and this is the good news that he has fulfilled the promise that he made to our fathers and the resurrection you're going to see in verses 33 and following is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and promises.

1 Corinthians 15 the passage in the resurrection chapter that defines the gospel. Paul says, I deliver to you as of first importance what I received, that Christ Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

Paul's pointing back to the Old Testament and he's saying, based upon the Old Testament testimony and according to the promises God made to the nation of Israel, those redemptive promises, God has fulfilled that by raising Christ from the dead.

The death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the central testimony of apostolic preaching. It was the heart of New Testament belief. Because the apostles did not sermonize on moral principles, nor did they sermonize on loving your neighbor, nor did they sermonize on the love of God.